2016 wasn’t all bad.
Here at FabRiders, 2016 was a great year of learning. Every event and project that goes by we find ourselves building and sharing on a body of knowledge that is contributed to and enabled by a fantastic set of partners and allies. Despite all the setbacks faced last year, we are confident that the critical know-how is with you and it’s all about sharing existing expertise with peers and not reinventing the wheel.
We will be building a better 2017 by:
- Sharing our workshop curriculum and tips on facilitation. In 2016, we provided consultation to over 100 facilitators who were developing workshop sessions and so we posted, tips for designing an effective workshop session. We also launched the FabToolkit, which is a collection of posts on training and facilitation and includes. a training of trainers module on adult learning. For much of last year we focused on developing and running participatory events. This included events for Greenpeace, School of Data, The Follow the Money Network and the Open Exchange for Social Change. We also provided facilitation consultation and support at this year’s MozFest. We believe that participatory events are opportunities for exemplifying accountability, breaking down knowledge hierarchies and building solidarity. We’re looking forward to more collaborations on running participatory events with our long-term partner and ally, Aspiration.
- Developing and strengthening networks to share expertise. During the first half of 2016, we worked extensively to help strengthen the network that supports LevelUp, a resource for digital safety trainers. One of the key learnings we had was understanding why and how networks of practice form and we wrote about it in ‘What are we building: communities or networks?‘. We also produced two webinars to bring network members together to share expertise on preparing for a training and evaluating training outcomes.
- Better understanding how to engage stakeholders. We started 2016 by posting ‘Hacking User Centred Design for Social Change‘ and ‘Tech Specifications’ and subsequently ran workshops at Internet Freedom Festival and MozFest based on both of these posts. It is likely you will find us running further workshops on this at the Internet Freedom Festival and the eCampaigning Forum. We are also heartened by how often people use our Stakeholder Mapping and Power Analysistool.
- Examining the role of data use in strategies for social change. We published a series of blog posts on our Data Literacy Research Findings for School of Data that culminated in March, 2016. The research project, that we ran with Mariel Garcia, found that while many data literacy efforts focus on the use of tools for handing data, the real challenge lies in understanding the context and situations to which the data can be utilised as evidence that influences stakeholders. We also published our curriculum to help social change actors think this all through in A Data Strategy Workshop Curriculum. We look forward to continued support of the work of our partners and allies that comprise the School of Data network.
What we’re reading to get us ready for 2017:
- 2016: A Year of Data Driven Confusion Our colleague, Zara Rahman, takes a look at how misleading data claims have led to real consequences in the world’s largest economies and makes a case for building ‘critical’ data literacy.
- Technology in Hostile States: Ten Principles for User Protection A post on the Tor Project Blog is meant to generate a conversation about best practices for using cryptography and privacy by design to improve security and protect user data from well-resourced attackers and oppressive regimes. And with a note that this is likely to become more relevant in the United States.
- How we built a productive remote team – without losing our marbles – From the Open Heroines Medium Feed, Edafe Onerhime reveals how Open Data Services has grown from a team of four to eleven and stayed healthy and productive.
What we’re listening to:
- Nothing but the truth – BBC Radio 4 programme exploring the origins of ’post-truth’ and ‘post-fact’ concepts and how people get information they feel they can rely on (spoiler alert: it’s about trusting the source).
- Travels with Bob – This episode features a lovely 15 minute dog walk through our adopted home town of Stroud.
- Friday Disco Backup now has it’s own website! Now you don’t need to be on twitter to enjoy the grooves, make the most of your backup routine with either the YouTube Playlist or on Spotify. Need a refresher on backing up? Check out this blog post from Huridocs.
And working with you.
Don’t forget: FabRiders offers free one hour consultations to provide you with advice and guidance. Please get in touch to discuss any challenges you have. We’re also always looking for hot topics and collaborations on posts for The FabBlog, along with curriculum and learnings about training/facilitation in the FabToolkit.